Case Number 26292: Small Claims Court

THE HAUNTING OF HELENA

The Charge

A secret lies within.

The Case

Children and horror have gone together smoothly since, at the very latest,
1960's Village of the Damned. I'm not sure what it is, whether it's their
natural innocence or their willingness to accept supernatural and fantastic
ideas, their presence in horror just makes sense. That said, since Ringu
and the late '90s influx of Japanese horror movies, the idea of the long-haired
little girl has become one of the most obvious of modern genre cliches.
Nowadays, a decade plus later, movies that use them are often dismissed, but I
know well that horror is an inherently unoriginal genre, so I have no problem
giving one a fair shot. With that in mind, we have The Haunting of
Helena, a movie that's rooted in a thousand things we've all seen before,
but works out pretty well.

In it, we find Sophia (Harriet MacMasters-Green), a single mother whose
daughter, Helena (Sabrina Jolie Perez), is so excited to get her first visit
from the tooth fairy that she distracts her mom into getting their car run off a
bridge. While ostensibly fine, Helena starts acting strangely, claiming the
tooth fairy craves her teeth. Soon, though, Sophia starts to see things, as well
and, after a little research, discovers the horrific history of her house and
now the past is coming back for revenge.

Had I not been assigned The Haunting of Helena for review, I probably
would have turned it off after the first big sequence. It's not that it's
particularly bad in its execution, it's really not. The problem is that it's a
set-up that every horror fan has seen a hundred times, and the tactic,
generally, leads to a reveal that couldn't be more obvious and something I'm
done sitting ninety minutes to find out.

Luckily, directors Christian Bisceglia and Ascanio Malgarini, in their first
feature, show a little more savvy than that by basically abandoning that idea
wholesale and starting on a new one. That idea, originally called
Fairytale, takes the weird notion of the tooth fairy into the realm of
horror. Adding that to a standard story of a long forgotten crime in the house
where they live and you have a pretty solid ghost story, not one that's opening
anybody's eyes to new possibilities in the genre, but one that works well enough
for what it's trying to do.

The director pair put together a relatively stylish production in The
Haunting of Helena. It's nothing flashy, but it looks nice, with a decent
spattering of gore thrown around. This is especially true for people with issues
about mouth stuff. People who hate the dentist will squirm at some of the scenes
here and, while they're never over the top, they are effective in helping build
the creepy atmosphere that takes the story to its weird, unfortunately confused
conclusion.

Given that it's probably the biggest problem in horror, the terrible ending
isn't such a big deal. The performances are relatively good and the direction is
pretty smooth throughout. Its use of the fairytale and its lack of conventional
scares, all while still maintaining a quality atmosphere, make The Haunting
of Helena an interesting, if inessential, piece of independent horror.

The Haunting of Helena comes to DVD in a decent edition from Vivendi
Entertainment. The 1.78:1 anamorphic transfer looks very good, with nice clarity
and accurate colors. It has a little bit of a rough look to it, but that's
clearly intentional, and the black levels, in general, look pretty strong. The
5.1 surround mix is decent, though nothing special. The dialog and music are
crisp and clear, but there's only a minimal amount of work in the rear
channels.

Extras are scant, with a behind-the-scenes featurette, a few interviews with
the cast and crew, and a brief look at some of the special effects work as the
entire slate. They're insubstantial and a little weak, but it doesn't bother me
too much.

The Haunting of Helena doesn't do anything with the horror genre than
we haven't seen before, but Christian Bisceglia and Ascanio Malgarini execute
their story pretty well for a relatively impressive debut and a perfectly solid
horror film. Nothing about it is revelatory or anything like that, but for
diehard genre fans, it's totally worth a look.